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After spending 90 hours a week on work, I realized I was just being busy & not productive!

Yes, being a Business owner & working for more than 12 hours a day seems quite a strenuous process but it is at the end you realize that you were just busy and not necessarily productive at your work.

You got to ask at the end of the day for what exactly has been accomplished to introspect the details but often you end up realizing that the day was a hectic one yet not really a productive one.

The similar scenario was something I was struggling with myself. Though we all believe we have our aims, targets and goals intact yet, somewhere down the line, if you have flaws in your processes, you end up staying busy and not exactly getting things done. I was luckily able to pick the lesson from this at an earlier stage and now, happily managing things how they were supposed to be done.

In the high-speed world, we are a part of, being busy is now taken as a status symbol but then is it really worth, is becoming the immediate question of the Hour.

With the beginning of a day, one must have the clear idea of what is the set target for the day. If that stays unclear anyhow, there are chances most of your day will go in a random direction. Here are a few hacks to make sure that you gain momentum at your work & do not just stay busy for the sake of saying so!

Decide the Focus

Whatever your job maybe, you must have got a lot on you or at least that’s how it is being taken often. Deciding and prioritizing the work hence, becomes crucial. You need to ask yourself with whatever task you have taken up if that is something to be done on priority. If your subconscious head says yes, go for it but if by any chance, you know it can be delegated, follow the path. Delegation of work is way more effective than you can imagine. As per yourself, check the most important thing to be done that day and pull your focus on the same. That’s how you’ll know being taken up in that task would end up resulting in something substantial.

The Deadly ‘To Do List’

I hope you have one for yourself. When did you last checked the length of that list and compared its feasibility within the deadline? Well, I’d suggest to do it right now. Just in case, you say ‘Yes’ for everything, your daily to-do list can convert into a matter of serious concern. It is nothing but one of the ways to stay taken up and hardly being productive. In such cases, there are two basic keys to follow. First, you got to learn the Power of saying NO. One has to be selective with tasks. A shorter To Do List boosts up confidence when you know these are the tasks which can bring about a positive difference effectively.

Progress Tracking with Effective ROIs

It is very important that you track the progress of your tasks on daily basis and make sure that you do it in the most effective way possible. Productivity is about completing something in lesser steps in lesser time instead of following the longer route, specifically, if it is going to result in the same way. It is the ROI of any process that justifies your input on the task. It is completely all right if you take help from certain apps to add on to your productivity and helps you keeping track of things in a more managed way. You need to have a proper track of the plan, decided goal & the allotted time frames in order to measure the Return on Investments in the Set Up.

Get Rid of Distractions

Mostly, these are the minor distractions that end up taking away a major chunk of your time. Your focus is pivotal and if something is disturbing the flow, you need to take immediate actions for the same. These distractions could be anything may it be sudden meetings with the Team which may waste your time at work or the Sticky Notes that you have kept around in your cabin. Such things end up hampering your productivity for worse. Make sure that you prioritize your presence wheresoever needed.

At the end of each day, have a review list of your own in order to check what you have done and how much have you achieved. While I agree not everything can change in one go but then there is always a beginning to things. Have a goal, a clear strategy, time division and ROI decided for tasks, things will be settled up just fine as in my case, they did!

This post is part of our contributor series. It is written and published independently of TNW.